NCAA Tournament: 10 Initial Thoughts On Final Four

We will certainly be providing you with ample coverage heading into next weekend’s Final Four, but let’s first recap the wild Elite 8 action in the NCAA Tournament. The aftermath is that the Duke Blue Devils, Kentucky Wildcats, Wisconsin Badgers, and Michigan State Spartans will be heading to Indianapolis.

Are we to the point where Mike Krzyzewski is the greatest coach in NCAA history? If not, why aren’t we? This is Coach K’s 12th trip to the Final Four, where he’s won four titles already. On Sunday, he capped off an impressive weekend, first beating a Utah team that many thought would give the Blue Devils fits, then beating a Gonzaga team that most had pinned as this being their year. And he did all this with just a eight-man rotation and rarely having multiple bench players playing double-digit minutes.

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Despite that last fact, Coach K wasn’t even close to the best coach on the day. Tom Izzo somehow took his relatively mediocre (respectfully speaking) team to the Final Four. Let that sink in. On December 20th, The Spartans lost to Texas Southern, at home, by seven points. If you had said that team would make the Final Four, I would have tested you for drugs and laughed my you know what off. But, as always, Izzo has his team playing it’s best ball in March and they’ve upset Virginia, the Sooners, and surviving in overtime against Louisville.

We would be silly not to bring up the instant classic that was Kentucky vs. Notre Dame on Saturday night. Admittedly, I gave Notre Dame little chance in this match-up. However, their ball movement and spacing were an offense that UK had neither seen nor could handle for much of the night. Fortunately for them, Karl-Anthony Towns came to play and did so in a big way, saving the Wildcats from massive, massive disappointment. Now, we get the long awaited rematch between the Badgers and Kentucky.

Hats off the Mike Brey’s Fighting Irish squad. I wasn’t the only one who gave them little chance, but boy did they play their tails off. For two-thirds of the game, Zach Auguste was the best big man on the court. Jerian Grant hit the big shot down the stretch, and they played their hearts out. There’s nothing for them to hang their heads about. On a related note, the early returns for viewership of the game put it as the most watched game in cable history.

The other game on Saturday saw the Wisconsin Badgers take down the Arizona Wildcats in a highly-anticipated rematch in itself. Last year, the Wildcats stamped on asterisk on the Badgers’ victory due to the injury of Brandon Ashley, who’s versatility would have been a better option defensively on Frank Kaminsky. This year, Ashley’s early foul trouble essentially nullified the match-up. Instead, it was the insane shooting in the second-half by the Badgers that was the storyline, with Wisconsin finishing 10-of-12 from the three-point line IN THE SECOND HALF!

Sam Dekker

gets his own mention on this list. As I tweeted during the game, I had picked the Wildcats to win the game, but was not aware that Dekker was going to turn into

Kevin Durant

in the second-half. The dagger came on a broken play with Dekker pulling up in his defender’s face, hoisting a high-arcing shot from three that splashed through the hoop, giving Wisconsin an eight-point lead and just 15 seconds left. Talk about clutch!

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Last thought on the Elite 8 is about Arizona, who against likely any other team or any other night against Wisconsin would have won. The fact they were in the game with the Badgers’ hot shooting is remarkable. Stanley Johnson‘s scratched eye appeared to have hurt him for most of the game, rendering him a non-factor.

The NCAA, CBS, and Indianapolis could not have asked for a better Final Four. They have the undefeated Goliaths in Kentucky, the National Player of the Year in Frank Kaminsky, arguably the biggest fanbase and the greatest coach in Duke, and the Cinderella story coupled with a phenomenal coach in Michigan State. I can’t think of a boring title match out of these four teams.

This Kentucky-Wisconsin match-up is going to be so amazing. A rematch of the Final Four last year with predominantly the same Wisconsin team against an improved and dominant Kentucky team. The Wildcats have the personnel to handle Kaminsky (Willie Cauley-Stein, Karl Anthony-Towns, Trey Lyles), but they don’t have the personnel to handle Dekker. Alex Poythress would have been that man, but injury took him out unfortunately. With Dekker hot and all other match-ups essentially canceling out, we could be looking at an upset.

Duke and Michigan State is a rematch in itself of the Champions Classic at the start of the year. In that match-up, Duke pulled away late thanks to Tyus Jones and won, but this is both a different Blue Devils team and a different Spartan team. The Blue Devils are a shallower team, but are playing their best ball. Similarly, the Spartans are playing their best basketball. You can rest assured that Michigan State’s free throw shooting woes will rear their ugly head in this game as they did against Louisville.

Next: 2015 NCAA Tournament South Regional: Elite 8 Preview

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